In response to Carol Tanner’s letter printed Jan. 7, “‘Rights’ only want power,” she is blaming the Republicans for all the problems the United States has, and maybe even the whole world. She cites the Republicans with “tax and spend,” and two wars we didn’t need. I am not sure what wars we “needed.”

The Democrats didn’t like Lincoln so they withdrew from the Union, leading to the Civil War and 500,000 battle deaths. Democrat Wilson got us into World War I, and 116,000 deaths. Democrat Roosevelt ran the White House in World War II, which took 405,000 American lives. Truman put us in the Korean war with its 36,500 lost lives. Then Johnson got us into a shooting deal in Vietnam with its loss of 58,300 lives. Total of 1,116,300 deaths.

McKinley (Republican) got us into the Spanish-American War, with a loss of 2,500 lives. Bush, the first, sent our military to free Kuwait, and we lost 383 Americans. Bush, the second, sent our forces after the bombers of the World Trade Center that killed over 3,000 Americans on American soil. Our military death toll is around 5,000 and still climbing. Total around 8,000.

So, what two wars didn’t we need? Tax and spend has been around since the beginning of politics. Long before the birth of the Democratic or Republican parties.

I enjoy watching FOX News. Nice to see and hear something other than Obama.

Robert Brown

Oak Harbor